Canadian Group Calls Out Facebook, Twitter for Censorship, Labeling Pro-Life Posts as 'Hate Speech'
A pro-life group in Canada that earlier this year had a YouTube video go viral has accused Facebook and Twitter of censoring recent posts on their social media accounts.
Choice42, an Ajax, Ontario-based organization, told the pro-life news website Life News in an interview published Wednesday that they recently had a video censored by Facebook.
"Many of our pro-life posts have been taken down lately and yesterday Facebook actually sent me a message saying it was because my post was 'hate speech,'" explained Choice42 Director Laura Klassen.
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"Our CHOICE42 video, 'Louise's Story' was blocked by Facebook when we originally uploaded it because it 'violated Facebook community standards.' It's the personal story of a young woman who was raped and became pregnant and decided to choose life. There is nothing graphic or disturbing in the video."
Klassen also told Life News that Choice42 has experienced similar problems with Twitter, drawing parallels to complaints made by the U.S.-based pro-life group Live Action.
"Twitter has done to us what they've done to Live Action, making our entire account ineligible for promotion unless we delete all of our 'anti-abortion tweets,'" continued Klassen.
"Live Action has been quite successful about making it known that they are being censored. I find it interesting that Facebook/Twitter cares enough about our little Canadian org to do the same to us."
Identifying itself as a grassroots organization that is "pro-woman, pro-baby, and pro-life," Choice42 gained much attention in June when its YouTube video "The Magical Birth Canal" went viral, receiving over 114,000 views and more than 2,100 likes.
Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter have garnered criticism for their apparent censorship and overall mistreatment of conservative and pro-life accounts.
For example, in October 2017, Twitter censored an ad by Republican Congresswoman Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee that denounced Planned Parenthood.
Soon after their decision was made public and received much backlash, Twitter announced that it was changing course and decided to allow the ad on its platforms.
In January, Facebook initially censored paid ads by Alveda King for her pro-life movie about the controversial landmark United States Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. Facebook later backtracked, claiming the ads were taken down by mistake.
In late August, The New York Times reported that a group of about 100 Facebook employees were forming an internal organization whose aim is to combat a liberal company culture considered by many to be intolerant of different views.
"We are a political monoculture that's intolerant of different views," posted Brian Amerige, a senior Facebook engineer on the social network company's internal message board, according to the NY Times.
"We claim to welcome all perspectives, but are quick to attack — often in mobs — anyone who presents a view that appears to be in opposition to left-leaning ideology."
